A Few Words About A few words about...™ A Christmas Carol -- in Blu-ray 3D (1 Viewer)

[Johnny Angell]

Originally Posted by TravisR

I'm wondering what the B&M stores are going to charge? Coupons can't be used on Amazon.

$30 at Target and $35 at Best Buy before the coupon.

[/QUOTE]

Thanks. I guess Target is the place to go.

 

[DaveF]

Originally Posted by Robert Harris

I did not see Disney's Pixar film of Charles Dickens' 1843 holiday offering in a theater.

This isn't a Pixar film. That said...Like others, I ignored all Zemeckis animation after the dreadful Polar Express. But this looked like it might be good. I doubt it's as good as the classic Muppets Christmas Carol, but I'll try to give it a watch this season. Thanks for the pointer; I would have ignored it otherwise.


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1067106/companycredits


Production Companies

• Walt Disney Pictures (presents)
• ImageMovers (as ImageMovers Digital) (presents)

Compare to post-merger Toy Story 3, still listed as a "Pixar" studio film


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0435761/


Company Credits Production Co: Pixar Animation Studios, Walt Disney Pictures [SIZE= 13px]See more »[/SIZE]

 

[Adam Gregorich]

Originally Posted by TravisR

I'm wondering what the B&M stores are going to charge? Coupons can't be used on Amazon.

$30 at Target and $35 at Best Buy before the coupon.

[/QUOTE]


My local BB matched their online price of $27.99 so after coupon it was $17.99. Not bad at all. Now I just need my 3D set to get here....

 

[Robert Harris]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adam Gregorich

I'm wondering what the B&M stores are going to charge? Coupons can't be used on Amazon.

$30 at Target and $35 at Best Buy before the coupon.

[/QUOTE]


My local BB matched their online price of $27.99 so after coupon it was $17.99. Not bad at all. Now I just need my 3D set to get here....


Adam,


The disc is amazing. The finest 3D that I've seen on Blu-ray.


RAH

 

[JohnS]

I just watched this on 3D bluray. And I really enjoyed it. Much more than I thought I was going to enjoy it.

It has some wonderful 3D effects.

I love the depth of looking through the windows and watching th snow fall.

And probally one of my favorite scenes is Scrooge with Ghost Present looking down through the floor.


But did anyone watch the Disney 3D bluray trailer with Bolt, NIghtmare Before Christmas and Alice in Wonderland.

Didn't anyone else think that the trailer had some bad ghosting in it.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

John,


Would have had a review up already but

my Amazon order got lost in the mail (first time

that ever happened) and they won't replace it

till next week.


Looking forward to watching and reviewing this

because it's supposed to be one of the better

3D titles out there and lately I have been reviewing

stuff I am not particularly happy with.

 

[TonyD]

this can be had at Target for about $15 with coupons that are available. one will be a $5 coupon in the add sunday but you should be able to get that saturday in the early sunday paaper, or now from various sites, the other is the $10 disney movie rewards coupoun added to Target's $29.99 = $15.


I'm tempted to do this even though I don't have a 3-d tv.

 

[mr june]

I saw this in a theater 3X and have been awaiting it's arrival since then. Though it debuted at #1 at the box office, the tally was much lower than Disney was expecting. I was very surprised that it did not do as well because Disney did something to promote it that I had never seen before. The summer before it came out they had a train tour that started off in California and made selected stops across the U.S. My wife and I caught up with it at Union Station here in Chicago during the summer of 2009. It was a brilliant move and quite in keeping with the Disney style of enchantment. It was Disney at it's finest. After waiting in line you boarded the train and was treated to interactive treats dealing with the movie and the life and times of Dickens. They even had authentic clothing from the period in cases. You also could put your own face on the body of a character from the movie and go on-line to fetch it and print it out. One of the train cars focused on the movie's special effects.

After exiting the car you were treated to falling winter snow, carrolers, and jugglers all decked out in Victorian clothing. Last but not least, they had a blow up 3D theater so you could take a sneak peak at the film. They had me hooked and I couldn't wait for the film to come out. When it did, my wife and I did indeed enjoy it very much and between this film and the many other 3D movies that we have seen since Journey To The Center of the Earth, I couldn't wait for 3D TV to arrive. I too think this movie will become a holiday classic and redeem itself. The critics certainly were hard on it but from what I can tell from the BD reviews the tide is already turning.

 

[Mike Frezon]

Well, my wife and I watched this (in Blu-ray 2-D)--for the first time--over the weekend.


We didn't see it in the theater but we attended the same 3-D train event mentioned above by June (although at the Albany, NY train station).


I had no interest in the film as I am not a fan of the animation style and adore the 1951 Alastair Sim version and consider it definitive. I was frankly surprised by how much of Jim Carrey's performance seemed to be modeled after Sim's performance (especially after the Christmas morning epiphany).

The video and audio were, indeed, superb...the telling of the tale wasn't too bad. There were a couple of spots that completely took me out of the film--one being when Marley's ghost was foretelling the visits of the three ghosts of Christmas to Scrooge and he launched into a number of comedy takes involving the dislocation of his jaw. I turned to my wife and commented about how they had been playing the film completely straight up until that very moment. She agreed and commented that maybe the filmmakers figured the kids' attention would be starting to wander at that point?


We enjoyed the ride, though, to be fair. But I'm really not sure how much replay value it will have at our home.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

In the interview with Carrey posted in the review thread, he mentions that Alastair Sim's take was his favorite version, so that might explain the similarity.


Also, doesn't the jaw business come from the original story?

 

[Mike Frezon]

Originally Posted by Aaron Silverman


Also, doesn't the jaw business come from the original story?

Oh. I don't know. Could be.

But it still seemed like an out-of-place extended comedy riff at a time when Scrooge was cowering from the apparition.

 

[Steve Y]

Also saw this in the theater (3D) during its theatrical run, and was impressed by the fidelity to Dickens' original text. I'd definitely watch it again, though probably only during the holidays.


Of course, the trailers emphasized the physical comedy, which was in fact the aspect of the movie I found to be distracting rather than entertaining. However, most of the movie makes up for the slapstick, which really accounts for very little of the running time.


It's easy to see why they went the "comedy bit" route with Marley's ghost and the "jaw" scene. As written, the scene is chilling; filmed, it is terrifying. To play that scene as straight horror would have alienated much of its younger audience. They probably felt that if they wanted both a family film and a faithful film, they had to play it for laughs. So they did.

 

[Yumbo]

Hi,


Our PS3 with firmware 3.5 does not work with this.


Ideas?


Screen says,"This disc has recognized that this player cannot play 3D discs".

 

Is your player a 3D player? Because that is the 3D disc. The 2D disc is the first disc in the set.

 

[Yumbo]

PS3 is supposed to be 3D capable.


Or does it need to be connected to an actual 3D display first before it can load?

 

[TonyD]

you need a 3d player, a 3d disc and a 3d tv for the 3d disc to work.

 

[Stephen_J_H]

Originally Posted by Yumbo

PS3 is supposed to be 3D capable.


Or does it need to be connected to an actual 3D display first before it can load?

The MVC codec is supposed to be backwards compatible, meaning that even if your PS3 is hooked up to a 2D display, it should give you a 2D image. I'm not sure what Disney has done with its 3D disc to lock that capability out.

 

[Adam_S]

Correct. the original text has the jaw fall off, but the original text of this scene also has Scrooge's comic and acid lines just as the film does--in other words, in this scene, in the text, Dickens is balancing macabre and humor, as the filmmakers chose to do as well.

Originally Posted by Steve Y
It's easy to see why they went the "comedy bit" route with Marley's ghost and the "jaw" scene. As written, the scene is chilling; filmed, it is terrifying. To play that scene as straight horror would have alienated much of its younger audience. They probably felt that if they wanted both a family film and a faithful film, they had to play it for laughs. So they did.

 

[mr june]

It's interesting that reviews of this BD are praising it for what critics were slamming it for when it arrived in theaters. And that is for the animation process that RZ used. I was fine with it but last year they were harping on the "dead eyes" of the characters cept for Scrooge. I could see it a little but it did not distract in the least.

 

[Johnny Angell]

After watching this movie at home I believe the RZ came much closer to climbing out of the "uncanny valley" then he did with Polar Express. However, I don't think he made it all the way, in particular with supporting characters. There are times when I think I'm supposed to accept what is on the screen is reality (as opposed to say Toy Story, where I know it's animation all the way) and times when I'm supposed to think of it as animation.


Most of the time I think it's animation and that they didn't quite get it right. I don't always believe in the character animation. Having said all that, I still found it to be very entertaining.